As Modi magic dissipates, BJP faces reality test

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

After a series of disappointing results in bye-elections across the country, the BJP is now in an introspection mood. It has now come to realise that the “wave politics” was temporary and has come to an end. For the party rank and file, it was time again for grass roots politics, hard work and a new strategy to win back the voters.

The immediate task in hand not only for the BJP but also its rivals is obviously the Assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra next month, followed by Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand where polls could be held in January. Delhi too faces another round of polls anytime now as there is little possibility of anyone forming a government without engineering defections.

But what went wrong for the BJP after Narendra Modi was swept to power in a wave election in May 2014? Was the party a victim of over-confidence or fell down due to a new political arithmetic shaping up in north India?

Take for example Uttar Pradesh where the party performed rather badly in the Assembly polls. The seats which it lost were vacated by its MPs after winning the May 2014 polls. The party lost seven of the 11 seats it held in the bypolls, clearly suggesting that the ground situation had changed drastically within months of sweeping the State in May. In fact, NDA constituent Apna Dal also lost Rohania Assembly seat in Varanasi parliamentary constituency, represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But all is not lost for the BJP in UP as the bypoll results cannot be seen in isolation from the existence of multi polar politics in the biggest State of the country. Ask even those opposed to the BJP and they will admit that had the Bahujan Samaj Party contested the bypolls, the results would have been entirely different. As it was a straight contest between Samajwadi Party and the BJP, the ruling party at the Centre had to face reverses. The vote bank of the BSP perhaps shifted en masse to the SP, there was a consolidation of the minority votes for the SP and issues of love-jehad failed to ignite the imagination of the voters.

The message to the BJP was loud and clear. If the index of Opposition unity is high, it would find the going tough. Though in UP it was not a case of Opposition unity as the BSP decided not to contest as part of an electoral strategy but in Bihar a month earlier it was strong Opposition unity which proved to be the nemesis of the BJP. In Bihar, the RJD, JD(U) and the Congress came together on a common platform for the bypolls and won six of the ten Assembly seats.

Clearly in Bihar and UP, the altered political arithmetic following the Lok Sabha polls led to the defeat of the BJP. In the Lok Sabha polls, if the votes of the RJD, JD(U) and the Congress are added, it was more than that of the BJP. Though polls cannot be entirely fought on fictional arithmetic, it does help gauze the mood of the people and suggest the respective strengths and weaknesses of the parties and their support base in different caste groups. In Bihar, it remains to be seen if the three parties stick together for the next year’s Assembly polls given their divergent support base, mutual bickering, aspiration for the Chief Minister’s post and claims and counter-claims of their leaders.

In Uttar Pradesh, it would indeed be a wishful thinking to imagine the BSP and the SP coming together. Given their acrimonious past and bitter rivalry, this cannot materialise in the near future. But in a hypothetical situation if the votes they poll is added up along with that of the Congress, a new arithmetic emerges and surely the BJP cannot be found anywhere in this scenario. The BJP can thrive in UP and Bihar only in a multi-cornered contest. It remains to be seen whether it can consolidate the vote base which it got in the Lok Sabha polls and increase it further. That would be a formidable challenge and the BJP would have to take it head on if it wants to make governments in the two key States of north India.

The bypolls nevertheless confirmed that May 2014 was a wave or rather a tsunami and it has subsided in three months. The party’s disappointing performance in the Assembly by-elections in Bihar, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh last month and now in UP and Rajasthan clearly indicate that the party needs to re-strategise and re-group and not take the May victory as ever-lasting.

Gujarat is a case in point. Here the BJP won Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, vacated by Prime Minister Modi, but the margin came down by over two lakh votes. A down and out Congress managed to wrest three seats from the BJP which saw a clean sweep of the party barely three months ago and that too when a fellow Gujarati runs the country as the Prime Minister. The score-line here was 6-3 in favour of the BJP but ask the saffron party supporters and they will admit that loss in this State indeed hurts.

In Rajasthan, another “clean sweep State”, the Congress wrested three seats from the BJP, indicating that its revival was only a matter of time. Of the four seats the BJP won only one even though all the seats were vacated by the newly- elected MPs. The score-line of 3-1 in favour of the Congress was indeed disappointing for the BJP and its leaders conceded it saying local factors contributed in the defeat.

Last month, the BJP lost all three seats where bypolls were held in Uttarakhand, suggesting the slackening grip of the party in a State where it had won all the five seats in a clean sweep in the Lok Sabha polls. Something indeed went wrong somewhere for the party in the hill State and it must have found out the reasons by now and may be taking corrective steps.

As the by-polls indicated that the BJP was vulnerable, the alliance partners struck when they thought the iron was hot. In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena is refusing to budge from its stand and concede extra seats to the BJP. The bargaining strength of the BJP has gone down considerably in the State where it did exceedingly well in the Lok Sabha polls, winning 23 of the 26 seats it contested. Clearly, the ambition to emerge as the senior alliance partner in Maharashtra has been the biggest casualty of the bypolls for the BJP. It cannot dump the Shiv Sena for the MNS as this would give a walkover to the Congress-NCP alliance and would have to be contented with what has been offered on plate.

In the other poll-bound State of Haryana, the alliance with the Haryana Janhit Congress is over as the BJP did not want to concede more than a dozen seats to Kuldeep Bishnoi. Even as the party workers hailed the break-up of the alliance, the by-poll results dampened their spirit. This was a State where they thought the BJP was heading to form the Government after winning seven of the eight seats it contested in the Lok Sabha polls. But given the new political reality after the by-polls, where local factors and issues decided the results and not a pan-Indian factor or a personality, there is an element of subdued caution amongst the BJP workers and leaders now. A section of the party is already talking about possible post-poll alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal. The party knows that the going is not as easy as in the Lok Sabha polls given the sub-regional issues at play, and the importance of strong candidates along with caste permutations and combinations in multi-cornered contests where the margin of victory is expected to be in a few hundreds. (September 22, 2014)

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Thus election season, Spotlight’s on Haryana

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

It seems the Congress has abandoned the Gandhi family at least in Haryana, which goes to polls next month.

Given the diminishing electoral returns of the Gandhi family, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, seeking an improbable third term, has dropped the names of both party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi from the publicity material which appears on both sides of GT Road from the borders of Delhi to Ambala.

Interestingly, after dropping the names of the party president and vice president, Hooda has sought to emerge as the only Congress leader in Haryana dwarfing others. All the wall paintings and posters in this GT Road belt only glorify Hooda and seek votes in his name. This comes at a time when Hooda too has lost his clout in the State and battling extreme political adversity and anti-incumbency to get at least a dozen seats in the State Assembly.

But the message which the publicity managers of Hooda, obviously with his concurrence, have sent is that the days of the high command are over and the regional chieftains of Congress would call the shots wherever they can. It is perhaps for the first time that a Congress leader (Hooda) has declared himself the chief ministerial candidate of the party. Moreover, Hooda is seeking votes on his own name, on his claims of giving something to every section of the society in the State rather than invoking the Gandhi family for the polls.

The Model Code of Conduct has come into force in the State and an interesting battle is shaping up. Ruling Congress is face to face with a resurgent BJP, riding high on the Narendra Modi wave. The third angle in the contest is Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which practically has no chief ministerial candidate as both its top leaders — father son duo of Om Prakash Chautala and Ajay Chautala — are languishing in jail after being convicted in the teacher’s recruitment scam.

BJP has desisted from naming anyone as the chief ministerial candidate as there are too many aspirants. The party is going to polls with the formula of collective leadership to prevent factionalism ahead of the polls. The only problem for BJP is the absence of a leader who has an imprint all over the State. Newly-inducted Chaudhary Birender Singh’s influence is limited to the Bangar belt, Rao Inderjit Singh, MP from Gurgaon and Minister in the Modi Cabinet is an import from Congress and is not acceptable to the cadres and middle ranking leaders. Another Minister in the Modi Cabinet from Haryana Krishanpal Gurjar, the MP from Faridabad is not known outside his constituency. Capt Abhimanyu, spokesperson of the BJP too has been active but lacks ground support. Om Prakash Dhankar, national President of BJP’s Kisan Morcha hails from Rohtak and was the only party candidate who lost the Lok Sabha polls to Deepender Hooda. This could weaken his chances of projection as the Chief Ministerial candidate even though he hails from the dominant Jat community. State BJP president Ram Bilas Sharma too hasn’t got much following and acceptability in the party.

Coming back to Congress, the most significant problem in Haryana is the reliance of the high command on only Hooda. This is a far cry from the policy of promoting several leaders in any given State, representing different caste and sub-regional aspirations. But in Haryana, party chief Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi have placed all their eggs in one basket. Tragically, the basket has got torn and the eggs are falling one by one.

Even as the chips are down, Hooda has shown no inclination to take everyone along as he perhaps knows the outcome and is preparing to position himself in the party after a possible electoral defeat in the Assembly polls. As the party high command is oblivious of the charges of the dissidents and their repeated plea against the Chief Minister, Hooda has turned into a regional autocrat, not willing to accommodate anyone except his camp followers. All dissidents have either parted way or will do so anytime now, except perhaps former Union Minister Selja, who is perhaps positioning herself as an alternative to Hooda in State politics post 2014 Assembly polls.

The year 2014 was really bad for Hooda on all counts. He saw the departure of several party stalwarts this year, which considerably weakened the party’s amongst all castes and regions of the state. Power Minister Capt Ajay Singh Yadav resigned from the Cabinet and then took back his resignation on the eve of Assembly polls, indicating serious fault lines.

All leaders who left Congress this year, charged Hooda with discrimination against most areas of the State except Rohtak from where his son Deepinder Hooda is MP, and areas surrounding it. “Only Rohtak, Sonipat and Jhajjar have seen development,” is the common refrain of all those who left the party. Be it Chaudhary Birender Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh,  Dharambir and others.

What is ironical and an indication of Congress turning a blind eye to Haryana is the fact that there is no tall leader of any stature left who could be the potential rival of Hooda in Haryana politics. There is only Rajya Sabha member Selja left who has been critical of Hooda for years now but unlike other leaders, she will remain in the party and fight the battle internally for leadership position in the near future. Clearly, the Congress is a sinking ship in Haryana and the Captain of the ship, Hooda has to take the blame for so many desertions and doing little to change his style of functioning and accommodating the views of those opposed to him.

The unpopularity of Hooda and the Congress is there for all to see. The Lok Sabha poll results shook Congress like never before, giving it merely one of the 10 seats. But Hooda continues to overlook the results, saying that it was a wave in favour of a person (Modi) and some other day ridiculing the Gujarat model of development saying Haryana model was far better. I don’t know, how many voters in Haryana believe him, but one thing is sure. Even his party colleagues do not. That perhaps explains a series of high profile desertions this year. What all this means is that Congress has practically written off Haryana even though the Opposition is badly divided and the excellent performance of BJP in the Lok Sabha polls may not necessarily mean that it will win Assembly polls as comfortably.

Even though there is a little over a month for the State to go to polls, possible post poll permutations and combinations are already being worked out. Even if BJP is not able to get the numbers to form the Government on its own, a situation is emerging where it could go for a post poll alliance with INLD to keep Congress out. INLD, an erstwhile constituent of NDA, has been sympathetic to BJP and wanted an alliance even in 2009 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls but was repeatedly spurned by BJP. The Chautalas have been praising Modi for a long time on every forum available to them. Now with NDA firmly in saddle in New Delhi, INLD too has expectations as it has remained out of power for a decade now. They could stitch a post poll alliance and whoever has more seats, would be the dominant partner in the alliance and would stake claim for CM’s post. Shiromani Akali Dal, an NDA constituent, is expected to bridge the gap in case there is no clear mandate for any party. (September 15, 2014)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/this-election-season-spotlights-on-haryana.html

Communication approach: PM Modi shows the way

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

For the first time after he became the Prime Minister of the country, Narendra Modi entered into a dialogue with the citizens of the country through the future generation. Though Modi may be technically addressing and interacting with the schoolchildren, the entire country was listening to each and every word he said on news channels, as almost all were bringing it to the people live.

While the address on Independence Day started the direct communication with the people, it was nevertheless a monologue. But the one on Teacher’s Day was a dialogue, a conversation in which the kids asked him what they felt like. The outcome of both was mesmerising even for those who had apprehensions about Modi’s governance. They realised that for the first time, the country had a Prime Minister who reaches out to the people and talk to them in a language they want to hear. I am not privy to the TRP figures of Modi’s address on Teacher’s Day but it was undoubtedly, one of the highest like popular programmes and cricket matches.

There has been certain criticism like the expenditure incurred on the entire programme and the children being asked to come to schools at an inconvenient time. But then, there is hardly anything  in the world which cannot be critically looked at. Let the critics do their job, think from the perspective of an Indian Prime Minister hammering across the concept of nation building to impressionable minds. You simply cannot look at everything from a political eye.

Modi clearly demonstrated that he is a man of the masses as millions were glued to each and every word he said. Like the Independence Day speech, he touched the raw nerves of the people through his use of this direct medium, speaking extempore and outlining the vision of the Government. It was a fresh breeze as people of the country had forgotten that the Prime Minister speaks.

The mass contact event on Teacher’s Day has now made politicians think what they had not been doing all these years. I talked to some Congressmen and they may disagree with Modi but appreciated the way he has established a direct rapport with the people by effectively using the medium of communication.  He struck the right notes as he laughed with the students, chatted with them, recounted events from his childhood and made sure that the message has been sent across.

The sheer size of the audience was mind-boggling and there is no single family across the country where his message has not gone. One estimate had it that around 75 per cent of the people of the country either heard him that day or were told by their kids about it.

After his address,  Modi took questions from the students, including some which many journalists want to pose to him. These were related to his thoughts on becoming Prime Minister and the buzz in Lutyen’s Delhi that he acted like a headmaster.

I fail to understand the critics who saw politics behind the move. Was breaking ice with students and teachers politics? Then exhorting children to play and sweat a lot, read biographies of great personalities, save electricity, need of building toilets in every school to prevent girl students from dropping out could only help the children understand better and get a perspective.

Though there were reservations initially and even negative feelings in parents and school administration, with his outreach Modi managed to overcome it. I too thought that my daughter would be inconvenienced and she could hear the speech sitting at home. But when he finished speaking, I was convinced of the move as my daughter came home learning things which she otherwise takes for granted.

Though Twitter cannot be the only criteria of judging an event in a country as vast and diverse as ours, but gives ample indication. As Modi was speaking and soon after he finished, the entire cyber world was full of positive reactions. I hardly found any critical expression, one complaining that he could not even go to the loo as he was mesmerised by the programme. There were only adjectives flowing on Twitter… Awesome, encouraging, historic, memorable, motivational, outstanding, inspirational, great, masterpiece, act of nation building…

Many politicians are thinking loud now. “Why couldn’t we think of doing something like this when we were in power,” a Congress leader told me. They feel that it was a question of idea in which they could not visualise how effective a direct communication can be with the citizens of the country.

Earlier, people used to watch presidential debates on television in the United States and wonder why couldn’t a similar practice be started in our country. That may be a far cry here. But time has come where communicating with the people directly would be a great advantage for any political leader. Modi has shown the way and this seems to be the only way for all time to come. (September 8, 2014)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/communication-approach-pm-modi-shows-the-way.html

Battlelines drawn: Modi wave on test for BJP

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

With the Assembly elections in Haryana just a few weeks away, the existence or non-existence of a Narendra Modi wave in North India would be tested for the first time in an electoral battle after the Lok Sabha elections.

No one has even an iota of doubt that it was the Modi wave which catapulted Bharatiya Janata Party to power in May 2014. This was a “Modi wave” election in favour of the BJP which was compared to the “sympathy wave” election in favour of the Congress in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. Many a political analyst termed it a “Modi Tsunami” which swept away all political parties and assiduously built regional and caste equations in large parts of North and Western India.

Now after the wave has subsided, it is back to the basics in the Assembly polls. Here, local equations, issues and caste factors matter more than the larger than life image of a personality or a pan Indian issue. The bypoll results in Bihar have already indicated how the BJP has to face new grass roots realities after a new alliance and reduction in the intensity of the Modi wave.

In North India, Haryana would be one State which BJP watchers would be observing closely. Expected to go to polls in October, the ruling party in the Centre has historically always gone for an alliance here and this would be the first time that the party would test its electoral prowess all alone. Even in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP fought with an alliance with Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC). It’s a different matter that HJC lost both the seats given to it while BJP won seven of the eight seats it contested.

Responding to the Opposition emanating from the State BJP, the Kuldeep Bishnoi led HJC snapped its three year old ties with it ahead of the Assembly polls. The alliance took shape when BJP was a fringe player in the State and there were different set of leaders calling the shots at the national level. Aiming to consolidate the non-Jat votebank, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj and Dr Harsh Vardhan played important role in getting the new alliance together after the party had snubbed Om Prakash Chautala led Indian National Lok Dal. While Gadkari was the party President in 2011, Swaraj was the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Dr Harsh Vardhan was the BJP in-charge of Haryana.

After the generational shift in BJP leadership, with Modi as Prime Minister and Amit Shah as party President, Bishnoi was left with no sympathisers in New Delhi who could influence the decision making. In the new dispensation, no one was willing to honor the 2011 alliance which had offered as many as 45 of the 90 seats to Bishnoi-led HJC and Chief Minister’s post to him for the first two and a half years if the alliance was voted to power. The Lok Sabha poll result further proved that HJC had little standing in the State and Bishnoi was no match to his mercurial father Chaudhary Bhajan Lal. Bishnoi himself lost from Hisar, considered a family bastion, a seat which his father won in 2009 Lok Sabha polls and he himself won in a by-election after the death of Bhajan Lal in 2011.

Not realising that the BJP had grown manifold in 2014 than what it was in 2011 when the alliance came into being, Bishnoi kept on insisting for 45 seats and Chief Minister’s post — a proposal considered “outrageous” and far removed from ground realities by almost everybody in the State unit of his alliance partner. The BJP on the other hand, sent feelers to him to either merge his party with it or settle for around a dozen seats in the new scenario, which had emerged post the Lok Sabha polls. Bishnoi was neither ready to accept the new reality not the proposal for merger. It was a mere formality when he announced his unilateral decision to snap the ties with the BJP. He had not attended either of the three important rallies — one by Prime Minister Modi himself in Kaithal and two by the BJP President in August, giving ample indications that the alliance was already dead before the formal announcement.

At the height of its popularity in 2009, when Chaudhary Bhajan Lal, the architect of the non-Jat political platform was alive, HJC managed a mere six of the 90 seats in the Assembly polls. Due to his political immaturity, five of the MLAs left HJC within days of being elected and merged themselves with Congress, helping it form the Government under Bhupinder Singh Hooda.  Failure to keep his flock together in 2009 kept Bishnoi in the margins of the political mainstream for the last five years despite his alliance with the BJP. Now in 2014, failure to keep the alliance with the BJP will perhaps badly haunt Bishnoi post the results of the Assembly polls.

Banking on the Modi wave and the Modi charisma, the BJP will contest all 90 seats alone, giving it ample maneuverability in the ticket distribution exercise now that the alliance with HJC is formally over. It has formed a considerably powerful caste alliance too with careful selection of those deserting other parties and is now a conglomeration of all castes instead of the non-Jat castes with which it started its political base.

The first important leader to enter the party was Rao Inderjeet, the Congress MP from Gurgaon, now a BJP MP from the same constituency and a Minister in the Modi Cabinet. He has considerable influence in what is known as the Ahirwal belt in South Haryana, in the districts of Gurgaon, Rewari and the nearby areas. BJP did not have any significant presence in the area dominated by the Ahir community before Inderjeet but now can easily make a dent here.

Short of important Jat leaders having support at the grass roots, BJP got Dharambir Singh in its fold from Congress before the Lok Sabha polls and fielded him from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency. He won defeating Shruti Chaudhary, granddaughter of Chaudhary Bansi Lal, considered the architect of modern Haryana. The victory indicated that BJP had made significant inroads in the Jat hinterland, areas in which it never had any presence in the past.

This was followed by the entry of another important Jat leader, Chaudhary Birender Singh, the Rajya Sabha MP from Congress. Birender, a former member of the Congress Working Committee, has influence in what is known as the Bangar belt of the State. But more than that, the old theory that BJP is a party of only the non-Jats has now been effectively demolished. It has now converted itself into an umbrella organisation of different caste groups and interests, an important tool which converts a party into election winning machinery.

It is practically now or never for the BJP in Haryana. Ever since it was formed 34 years ago in 1980, this is perhaps the best chance for the party to come to power on its own in the State without piggy-backing on anyone. Except Congress, the party was in alliance with almost everybody in the State since 1980 and this limited its expansion and growth even when the NDA was in power at the Centre. Now that it has removed the crutches, inducted leaders strategically and is raring to go for the polls, the party should be focussing on candidate selection. This is the most crucial part in an Assembly election as a minor miscalculation could trigger discontent amongst the workers, particularly as a lot of them are new to the party and have joined it recently.

The result of the 2014 Assembly election would indicate whether BJP has been able to convert itself into election winning machinery or not. It has the advantage of two-term anti-incumbency of Hooda Government, Modi wave, high profile desertions to the party and the promise of a good governance. It should consolidate on the advantages in the run-up to the polls and should not fritter away the opportunity it has. (September 1, 2014) 

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